Tuesday night the Wake Forest commissioners revisited last week’s vote to end the annual true-up of funding for the independent Wake Forest Fire Department and voted unanimously to restore the funding, which this year (fiscal year 2015-2016) will be between $30,000 and $40,000, according to Aileen Staples, the town’s director of finance.
Mayor Vivian Jones, who raised the question about the true-up last week, explained why. “I was thinking – it had nothing to do with the fire department. I have the utmost respect for what they do for our community – that our 97.5 percent budget is set for every department in our town and department heads know how much money they are going to have.” She said she knows the fire chief puts the true-up money into a capital fund for future vehicles, “but we have capital needs too. I was thinking of the entire organization. They are not a town department. We have a lot of needs to provide services to our community.”
A short explanation. The town bases its annual budget on a 97.5 percent collection rate of property taxes, and 11 cents of the property tax receipts is paid to the fire department, which contracts with the town and Wake County. Wake Forest traditionally collects more the 97.5 percent, and in the past the town has looked at the amount of money collected above the 97.5 percent and paid the fire department 11 cents of that amount at the end of each fiscal year.
Staples said the town also has its true-up, usually in the fall, and the extra money is allocated to town departments or projects. “Everybody benefits from the true-up.” The town will get about $1.5 million more than projected in the budget, but some of that is from sources aside from the property tax like sales tax and vehicle tax.
Commissioner Brian Pate, who voted last week to end the true-up and asked the question be on Tuesday’s work session agenda, said he was uncomfortable with his vote. “I regretted it right away.” He said he talked with Fire Chief Ron Early and town staff people. “I got the numbers. I am not a fan of debt. I learned they bought a fire truck with cash” with saved funds from the true-up.
“We have things that we have to buy too,” Jones said.
Commissioner Jim Thompson said, thinking of the 11 cents that the fire department did not actually get all of it.
“I think it was wrong of us to take that fee,” Commissioner Anne Reeve said. “We always have a very conservative budget. The town is going to keep growing. There is a need for a new fire station on the east side of town. When you think of all the houses in Traditions and at least ten other subdivisions” that are on the ground or planned. Reeve is the town’s liaison to the fire department and attends all the department’s board meetings.
Commissioner Greg Harrington asked Early how the proposed increase in funding from Wake County is going to affect the Wake Forest department’s budget.
Pay grades for firefighters are increasing, Early said, and everything proposed for the next three years “is already spent in salaries and benefits.” The true-up, he said, has become the way the department provides for capital expenses. Because it cannot float bonds, “we had to create our own capital line.”
Harrington said then that he was comfortable with his vote last week to end the true-up but agrees the town had “agreed tio give them the money that was collected. I’m really torn. It [the true-up] probably is the right thing to do.”
Commissioner Margaret Stinnett, who voted against ending the true-up, said, “Yes there are other needs but they are wants, not needs.” Police and fire protection are essential, she said.
All five commissioners voted for Pate’s motion to reinstate the true-up.
It was the true-up funding which allowed the department to pay cash for a new $425,000 engine for Station #3. Early is planning to purchase a second ladder truck by 2020 and staff it with 12 personnel, four crew members for each of three shifts. The truck will cost about $1 million and a year’s cost for the trained staff is $650,000 including salaries and benefits.
A sixth station is also planned for the east side of town in the next five to seven years with a place-holder construction cost of $5 million, and part or all of the cost of that station can come from the fire impact fee. The proceeds from that fee paid for Station #4 on Jenkins Road and its equipment. The town the amount of the fire department’s contract from 10 cents to 11 cents of the 52-cent property tax rate to cover the costs of staffing the new station.
If the Wake County commissioners approve the recommendations based on the fire service cost-share study, as it is anticipated they will, Wake Forest Fire Department will receive an additional $158,000 over its regular $713,000 for its operating budget in the next fiscal year, an additional $316,000 the following year and $474,000 the third year and thereafter with adjustments for growth and other changes.
The department contracts with the county for fire protection in the Wakette fire district outside the Wake Forest town limits. Early and other Wake Forest fire chiefs and board members have said for years the county has been short-changing the department, not recognizing or paying for Stations #3 and #4, and covering only 22.9 percent of its operating budget with the town paying the rest.
Part of the recommended change is to increase the rural fire district tax countywide from 8.12 to 9.6 cents per $100 valuation. That increase will fund the increase the county pays the shared-cost fire departments which serve both town and county areas, but the amounts of the increased payments will be based on five criteria: overall area served, 7.5 percent; property value, 20 percent; population, 30 percent; heated square footage, 7.5 percent; and service demand, 35 percent.
